Likewise for me. The only thing working for me out the box is graphics card; although not in SLI or with any features enabled. Everything else I've had to force vista drivers where possible. But it doesn't allow that for everything (ie sound card). This version seems to have a lot more constraints than the beta.

I decided to give the latest Vista drivers and beta 7 drivers a go with the sound card. Vista drivers installed when I ran them in compatibility mode, and the beta 7 ones installed just by double clicking. But they sure as hell don't work. The outcome was finger nails on chalk board squeals, with adding spitting and popping. So that's not a good idea . Then maybe on the off chance that mapping it to 7.1SS would help - it didn't.

Oh, but the new Nvidia drivers that are out now allow me to enable SLI .

Maybe it as because I had the drivers for XP installed on another drive but Windows 7 picked nearly all drivers up. Ones it didn't get were audio and WLAN. So I connected by ethernet cable to broadband and downloaded the WLAN drivers right away. I had to look for the audio drivers myself, so found vista ones that worked.

Ebenezer Scrooge was a weak minded lightweight.
He broke after only a few hours of brainwashing!!!

I notice pre-orders are available in the US now for Win7. They're also offering a pre-order discount on everything apart from Ultimate. Hopefully we'll get a similar deal here.

The upgrade packs look interesting (and cheaper) but I've heard people say never upgrade Windows, start fresh. Would anyone here be able to elaborate as to why upgrading is bad and what problems they've encountered?

In general, you always start with a fresh installation. The upgrade often brings all the bullshit with it from your old OS. Little registery issues and old version of files, all sorts of BS like that.

You could cheat, most upgrades will let you install a fresh OS as long as they see the disc or some other proof at some point. If you have to do it the hard way, install a barebones fresh OS and then upgrade that.

I tend to avoid upgrades if possible. You can get stuck, not able to complete the upgrade and not able to rollback either. I suppose it's easier with ghosting and cheap HDDs now.

Windows 7 pre-orders are up at amazon. Basic is on 50% discount, Professional 18% and Ultimate 17%. Looks like Ultimate will be just under £200. I'm going to hold off for a bit before pre-ordering. Maybe other sites will give better deals.

Can't see myself recommending it or buying it before spring 2010. Between the requirement for a fresh install and the fact that I always like to give them a couple of months out in the wild so that all the nasty little surprise are ironed out.

At least Office 2010 will be available in 64bit, so it may finally make sense to get Windows in 64 bit.